For those asking what Obama (and others) can do, I posted this in a thread yesterday morning. The only thing Obama-specific that i would add to this is that the US needs to encourage the EU countries to carry through with the suggested sanctions as a few are starting to waiver because of self interest (UK, Germany-looking at you):

Here are a few things that could help:1) financial aid. After decades of corruption, Ukraine is broke. Aid from the EUROPEAN, US, Canada etc would go a very long way to stabilizing the situation in Ukraine. The current uncertain situation is really helping Putin. Some stability would help with securing the East and unoccupied parts of the South.

2) international pressure: economic sanctions, asset freezes and removal from the G8 (7). Russian economy relies heavily on oil and gas. That dependence can be exploited and sanctions would have an effective result. Threatening profits will put pressure on Putin from within.

3) military support: not boots on the ground, but NATO could help Ukraine secure its airspace but only if requested (which I think they have already). NATO or UN forces could also send observers to both Crimea and Kyiv (symbolic at this point). The worst case right now is for any side to start shooting, in fact I think Putins plan was that Ukrainian troops or self defense forces would do just that. The fact that they didn't has exposed him diplomatically.

4) give Putin a quiet way out of this. The man is an egomaniac, no way he leaves right now with all the international attention. He needs a quiet, back-channel way to end this.

SlothB77:MithrandirBooga: jaytkay: SlothB77: What happens after we let Russia get away with this?

What should the US government do?

Be less blah. That's all he's asking. It's not that hard.

It Bush or Reagan were president, Russia would not have gone into the Ukraine in the first place. Putin would have feared them. Putin knew there would have been consequences. What should have happened is that the USA should have made Vladimir Putin too afraid to go into the Ukraine in the first place. Pre-emption via strong decisive leadership. Instead, we have disappearing red lines, concessions to the Iranians and international consensus. Putin does not fear reprisals and is acting as such.

A different reaction to Syria from the USA would have led to a different Russian response to the Ukraine. As bad as Obama has been with domestic policy, his miscalculations on foreign policy will be even more damaging to this country.

Yeah, Putin would never invade a neighbor with a Bush in the White House.

jaytkay:smoky2010: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Send in John Kerry and his strongly worded letter stating how upset we are.

I thought Kerry was going to release a statement, stating that he MAY release a strongly worded letter to the UN, who should then send in Rip Torn with a bucket of strongly worded confetti for Putin to enjoy.

So what is the proper US response?

The proper US response is to release several hundred thousand barrels of our reserve oil daily and effectively hit the Russkies right in their dick. Remember: their economy is highly dependent upon oil, so if we're able to flood the market and drop prices...boom: their already weak economy gets hit hard. Of course there are a couple of obvious holes in this plan:

1. Our wonderful Saudi "friends" will probably not go for this.2. An injured Russia is a very dangerous Russia.

SlothB77:So what does happens after Russia invades the Ukraine? What happens after we let Russia get away with this?

I would hardly call "destroying their farking economy and forcing them to pull back without ever endangering a single American servicemember's life" letting them get away with it.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what we're going to do. The Ruble is already in freefall just on the thought that our economic sanctions will come soon. When they do, you're going to see Russia's economy looking just as shiatty as it did in 1992.

So what does happens after Russia invades the Ukraine? What happens after we let Russia get away with this? Will the rest of the world be a safer, more peaceful place or a dangerous, more war-torn place? Will other rogue leaders be more inclined or less inclined to be aggressive? Will our allies be more trusting or less trusting of our support? Will our allies be confident that we are willing to help defend them if they are in peril?

And why is Russia invading the Ukraine? Because the Ukraine just attacked them? Because the Ukraine sent terrorists to attack Russia? None of that. This is pure Russian imperialism. The USA didn't do anything close to this in Iraq. We freed the people of Iraq from a dictatorship. Russia saw Ukrainians exercising democracy, ousting a dictator and sent their military in to re-establish dictatorship.

By being a weak, spineless leader, Obama is making the world a much more dangerous place. He is alienating and punishing our allies and rewarding our enemies. No one fears Obama and that lets rogue leaders run roughshod over the world, lets them murder their own citizens. If we let the Russians take the Ukraine, what is to stop them from going after Moldova or Belarus or Poland or Romania or Bulgaria next? Or all of them

spiral_fishcake: The headline reads "Putin says he will protect Russians in Ukraine", but will he protect Ukrainians in Ukraine?

putin's definition of "Russians" includes basically anybody who speaks Russian. This is like the English suddenly deciding to protect (US state name here) on similar pretenses. It's all part of the general russia propaganda schtick where they count on people on the west not being able to differentiate between also-russian-speaking-ukrainian, primarily-russian-speaking russian ukrainian, russian-ethnicity-ukrainian citize, russian-speaking russian citizen living in ukraine, "russian", "generally not for the EU", "likes Putin", "wants to join Russia."

the latter category in particular there are VERY few in ukraine, which is why russia had to bus them in over the last few days. The guy who planted the russian flag on the administration building in kharkiv? a russian citizen from a russian ultranationalist group living in russia who came to ukraine a few days earlier on a tourist visa. we even know his facebook page (where, bizarrely, he has pictures of himself in nazi regalia).

my company has offices in both eastern and western ukraine. i have ethnic russians, ukrainians, and people who consider themselves ethnically jewish working for me. half of them speak no or not much ukrainian. and all, to a person, hate putin with a passion. of course, these are self-selected young people who work for a western company, but it is telling.

Rhino_man:Diet_evil: Rhino_man: SlothB77: So what does happens after Russia invades the Ukraine? What happens after we let Russia get away with this?

[stormchan.org image 850x606]I would hardly call "destroying their farking economy and forcing them to pull back without ever endangering a single American servicemember's life" letting them get away with it.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what we're going to do. The Ruble is already in freefall just on the thought that our economic sanctions will come soon. When they do, you're going to see Russia's economy looking just as shiatty as it did in 1992.

"I'd like to report an intruder in my home, he's kicked me out and is using my stuff and eating my food.""Don't worry sir, we shut off his bank account and arn't letting him get any more food, he should be gone in a few weeks.""Oh thank goodness I'll just chill on the street."

I'm not saying the US needs to go in if Russia decides they can haz parts of Ukraine, but some one should. Because hoping they "tucker out" while raping their neighbors is kinda farked up.

The whole situation is farked up, thanks to Putin... so now we have to find the least farked up way out of this situation. Now, I dunno about you, but I'd say that getting them out with the fewest shots fired is the least farked up way to do it, because shooting at the Russians is likely to start World War Three.

Listen all but the biggest 'murrica tards don't want war, but if they decide to take the Ukraine or parts of it, its to late, we got war. Regardless of sanctions or hosed economics, the have started a war at that point. You can do your own research on groups that absorb neighbors with out retribution and come to your own conclusions about if the are likely to stop after just one or two.

We're watching a man across the street get mugged and hoping that if we just refuse to do business with the mugger the wont be able to afford bullets and will then stop mugging people.

Just listened to Obamas speech yesterday. Why do liberals think they win every discussion as long as they use the term "wrong side of history?" It is pretty ignorant to believe they get to choose the historic perspective in all things. How about actually being firm with diplomatic speeches, not diplomacy by shame. Putin really doesnt care that Obama thinks what he did was bad.

Rhino_man:SlothB77: So what does happens after Russia invades the Ukraine? What happens after we let Russia get away with this?

[stormchan.org image 850x606]I would hardly call "destroying their farking economy and forcing them to pull back without ever endangering a single American servicemember's life" letting them get away with it.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what we're going to do. The Ruble is already in freefall just on the thought that our economic sanctions will come soon. When they do, you're going to see Russia's economy looking just as shiatty as it did in 1992.

"I'd like to report an intruder in my home, he's kicked me out and is using my stuff and eating my food.""Don't worry sir, we shut off his bank account and arn't letting him get any more food, he should be gone in a few weeks.""Oh thank goodness I'll just chill on the street."

I'm not saying the US needs to go in if Russia decides they can haz parts of Ukraine, but some one should. Because hoping they "tucker out" while raping their neighbors is kinda farked up.

SlothB77:So what does happens after Russia invades the Ukraine? What happens after we let Russia get away with this? Will the rest of the world be a safer, more peaceful place or a dangerous, more war-torn place? Will other rogue leaders be more inclined or less inclined to be aggressive? Will our allies be more trusting or less trusting of our support? Will our allies be confident that we are willing to help defend them if they are in peril?

And why is Russia invading the Ukraine? Because the Ukraine just attacked them? Because the Ukraine sent terrorists to attack Russia? None of that. This is pure Russian imperialism. The USA didn't do anything close to this in Iraq. We freed the people of Iraq from a dictatorship. Russia saw Ukrainians exercising democracy, ousting a dictator and sent their military in to re-establish dictatorship.

By being a weak, spineless leader, Obama is making the world a much more dangerous place. He is alienating and punishing our allies and rewarding our enemies. No one fears Obama and that lets rogue leaders run roughshod over the world, lets them murder their own citizens. If we let the Russians take the Ukraine, what is to stop them from going after Moldova or Belarus or Poland or Romania or Bulgaria next? Or all of them

The one thing that we can all be sure of is that, whatever happens, you will be completely wrong about it.

Bomb Head Mohammed:spiral_fishcake: The headline reads "Putin says he will protect Russians in Ukraine", but will he protect Ukrainians in Ukraine?

putin's definition of "Russians" includes basically anybody who speaks Russian. This is like the English suddenly deciding to protect (US state name here) on similar pretenses. It's all part of the general russia propaganda schtick where they count on people on the west not being able to differentiate between also-russian-speaking-ukrainian, primarily-russian-speaking russian ukrainian, russian-ethnicity-ukrainian citize, russian-speaking russian citizen living in ukraine, "russian", "generally not for the EU", "likes Putin", "wants to join Russia."

the latter category in particular there are VERY few in ukraine, which is why russia had to bus them in over the last few days. The guy who planted the russian flag on the administration building in kharkiv? a russian citizen from a russian ultranationalist group living in russia who came to ukraine a few days earlier on a tourist visa. we even know his facebook page (where, bizarrely, he has pictures of himself in nazi regalia).

my company has offices in both eastern and western ukraine. i have ethnic russians, ukrainians, and people who consider themselves ethnically jewish working for me. half of them speak no or not much ukrainian. and all, to a person, hate putin with a passion. of course, these are self-selected young people who work for a western company, but it is telling.

This! well said.

evidence of protester "tourists". Same people, different cities. Putin is bussing them in.

Side note, I watched that with my wife and she pointed put there are only three women characters in the whole film, only one of whom has both a speaking part and a name. The rest of the film takes place in Clancy's fantasy boys-only treehouse.

Epic Fap Session:FTA: "Putin blamed much of the disorder he described on the West, particularly the United States."

Wha?

I've already gotten into it with people on twitter who think this... here's their farked up reasoning:People are never unhappy with their own governments. Therefore, people never want to revolt against their governments. Therefore someone else must be staging those uprisings. That somebody is the US. Therefore, the US made Russia invade Crimea by causing the Ukrainian government to collapse with a staged, false-flag uprising.

"Crimea has a lot fewer ethnic Russians (58%) than Chechnya has ethnic Chechens (95%). Yet Crimea enjoys a level of autonomy, Chechnya and other Russian Federal Republics can only dream of.

13 of 21 Russian federal republics have Russian ethnic population in minority, yet they are subordinated to Moscow and the Russian plutocrats. They are not treated like federated republics, but like colonies to be exploited and subjugated!"

"All we did was reinforce the defense of our armed facilities," he said. "They have been receiving threats because radicals, extremists were moving to Crimea. We hope we won't be forced to do anything like that in eastern Ukraine. We don't want to interfere, but all Ukrainians should have equal rights in shaping the future of the country no matter where they live."

You'll have to excuse me if I think the media is just OVER-HYPing this so the story will draw more attention.......